The Ingredients You Should Avoid Adding To Your Beef Brisket Rub

BBQ is one of the great American past times, and if you ask a lot of people, there's no greater single BBQ item than brisket. But brisket doesn't get to being mouth-wateringly delicious the easy way; any experienced pit master will tell you it's the ultimate challenge when it comes to BBQ. This also means there are plenty of things to be aware of when it comes to brisket: figure out whether you want to smoke it in tin foil or butcher paper, make sure to take your time with it, and always, always keep it away from the grill.

But those aren't the only things to think about when it comes to brisket. There's another very obvious one that can fly under the radar: How should you season it? It turns out that with brisket, there are certain classic BBQ flavors that just don't work and you really should avoid — namely, anything generally designed for pork.

It seems self-explanatory to say that beef and pork are different meats, but it's worth reiterating for the purposes of this discussion. There may be some overlap — both of them can go great with the same kinds of BBQ sauce, for example. But they're still different meats and different seasonings complement them better than others. For all the wonders paprika works with most proteins, it really doesn't do a lot for beef; it's not going to hurt it, but there's really no reason for it to be there, either.

The same is true for others, as well. There's no arguing that brown sugar is anything less than a fantastic component when it comes to seasoning pork. But on a brisket, it just does nothing to add to the overall flavor profile. The same is true of ginger, which actually goes very well with beef in other contexts such a thematically Asian recipes, but gets fully lost in the flavors brisket already has going for it.

There are, however, some significant points of overlap in seasonings that work well for both brisket and other types of BBQ. Salt and pepper are gimmes; they're the foundation of innumerable seasoning blends in cooking. Garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, and chili powder are pretty universal; they're going to work with either protein (or chicken, for that matter) as long as those are the flavors you're targeting.

But there's another seasoning that works wonders for both pork and brisket which you might not be using: mustard powder. The bitter (yet never overpowering) earthiness mustard powder provides creates a major boost to many savory dishes, yet also melds very well with other flavors — it's a great addition to both pork BBQ items and something like beef brisket. Likewise, monosodium glutamate (MSG) can actually be a fantastic additive to BBQ. Despite its reputation, there's nothing dangerous about MSG (as people are finally starting to realize), and its salty, umami kick can really punch up your brisket.